Why I Teach My Children to Respect Police Officers

Over the past several months, I have seen so much disrespect and crazy comments about the police force. I am sad that parents feel the need to teach their children to take a side whether that is the police or Black Lives Matter. The long and the short of this is EVERY LIFE MATTERS. It doesn’t matter if you are white, black, latino, or purple your life matters. However, on that same note, it doesn’t matter if you are a teacher, a firefighter, a store clerk, or a police officer your life matters as well. A persons skin color or profession does not make them a good or bad person. Doctors are there to help people and sometimes they commit malpractice. Teachers are there to teach and sometimes they act poorly with students (sex, naked photos, bullying, etc). Police officers are there to protect and sometimes the wrong person gets shot. Being in any given profession does not mean that everyone in that profession is a good person, there is still evil in the world, but it also does not mean that, because of one persons mistake or bad choice, that everyone in that profession is evil.

That is why teaching your children to respect others, no matter who they are, is essential. Going off some of the ideas of today, many would like to make you believe all police officers are bad and they are out to get people, so Black Lives Matter has to put a stop to it. But, people seem to forget that these same officers, who are all supposedly killing everyone for sport, are the ones who come when you get in a car accident, they are the same ones who come to your house when you think someone has broken in, they are the same ones who put their lives on the line daily to keep people, who really do have bad intentions, at bay and make it safe to walk around at night.

Have you ever stepped back to think of what their family feels like when they leave home for work, especially now? Can you imagine what it is like to wonder if your dad, mom, sister, brother, or child will come home after their shift? Can you imagine the stress these families face every time they see that an officer was shot down just because they were a police officer?

Respect goes both ways and if you want your children to really understand respect, they have to understand that everyone deserves respect, and everyone’s life matters.

So how do you teach that? You have to have genuine conversations with your kids when they see these events happening. By explaining that, yes, there are bad people in the world, but that if one person does something wrong (ie. Police officer, pastor, husband, wife, parent, teacher, doctor, etc.) it does not mean that everyone in that group of people is bad.

I cannot teach my children to respect their parents, grandparents, teachers, and then exclude police officers. EVERYONE DESERVES RESPECT. Do you really think that you can exclude one group of people? The answer is no. We live in a world with no absolutes and we are confusing our children by saying one thing and only applying it to what we want to.

In the end we are dealing with a logical fallacy, A+B doesn’t always equal C and one mistake (whether on accident or on purpose) does not make one group of people all bad. Police Officers are there to protect us and they do so by placing themselves in the line of fire. So, the next time you hear about a police officer who shot someone or was shot themselves look into it before you jump to conclusions. Things are not always what they seem r how people reporting on them make them seem. Take a minute and think about it from the other side.

How do you talk to your kids about Police Officers? How are you explaining these events in your home?